NEW DELHI: The Maharashtra cabinet was sworn in on Sunday in the presence of chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and his deputies Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar. Governor CP Radhakrishnan administered oath to the ministers at Raj Bhavan in Nagpur.
The swearing-in of the state cabinet in Nagpur, which comes a day before the winter session of the legislature, marks a rare occasion as the last such ceremony in Nagpur happened in 1991, when the then governor C Subramaniam administered oath to Chhagan Bhujbal and other ministers.
The portfolio allocation to the ministers is expected to wrap up soon as the parties have just one day to ascertain the roles of the MLAs before the session kicks off.
Here’s the list of ministers from BJP
- Chandrashekhar Bawankule, BJP’s state president, was the first to be sworn in as cabinet minister. He is an MLA from the Kamthi assembly constituency in the Nagpur district.
- Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil took oath as minister after Bawankule. He is in his 8th term as MLA from Shirdi. Patil was earlier with the Congress, Shiv Sena and now BJP. In the Shinde government, he was the revenue minister.
- Chandrakant Patil took oath as minister. He is in his second term as MLA from Kothrud in the Pune district. He was MLC in 2014 and was revenue and public works minister in the Devendra Fadnavis government. Patil was also Maharashtra BJP chief from 2019-2022.
- Pankaja Munde, who is a MLC and party’s national secretary, took oath as minister. Munde is the daughter of Maharashtra’s ex-CM Gopinath Munde.
- Girish Mahajan will also be part of the Fadnavis’s cabinet. He has been elected seven times consecutively as MLA from Jamner in Jalgaon district. He is known to be a close confidant of Fadnavis.
- Ganesh Naik, who is in his seventh term as MLA from the Airoli assembly constituency, took oath as minister. Earlier, he was with the Shiv Sena and NCP before joining the BJP in 2019.
- Mangal Prabhat Lodha, who is in his seventh term as MLA from Malabar Hill assembly constituency in South Mumbai, took oath as minister. He has been the skill development minister in the Eknath Shinde government and was the former BJP Mumbai unit president.
- Jaykumar Rawal, a 5th term as MLA from Sindhkheda, took oath as minister.
- Atul Save, who is in his third term as MLA from the Sambhajinagar East assembly constituency, took oath as minister. He was the housing minister in the Shinde government.
- Ashok Uike, a tribal leader in the third term as MLA from Ralegaon in Yavatmal district, took oath as minister.
- Ashish Shelar, third-term MLA from Bandra West in the Mumbai suburbs, took oath as minister. He is currently the Mumbai BJP chief.
- Shivendraraje Bhosale, fifth-term MLA from Satara, took oath as minister. He is a descendant of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.
List of ministers of ministers from Shiv Sena
- Gulabrao Patil will be the part of Maharashtra cabinet. He went with Eknath Shinde when the Shiv Sena was split. He is in his fifth term as MLA from the Jalgaon Rural assembly constituency.
- Dada Bhuse took oath as minister on Sunday. He is in his fifth term as MLA from the Malegaon (Outer) assembly constituency. He too went with Eknath Shinde when the party split in 2022.
- Sanjay Rathod, who won the Dogras assembly constituency, will be part of the cabinet.
- Uday Samant, a fifth-time MLA from the Ratnagiri assembly constituency, took oath as minister. He was education minister in Uddhav’s MVA government before he went with Eknath Shinde after a split in Shiv Sena.
- Shambhuraje Desai took oath as minister. This is his fourth term as MLA from Patan assembly constituency.
List of ministers from NCP
- Dhananjay Munde, who is in his second term as MLA, took oath as minister on Sunday.
- Hasan Mushrif took oath as minister. He is the fourth term as MLA from the Kagal in Kolhapur district.
- Dattatreya Bharne, third-term MLA, took oath as minister. He won the Indapur assembly constituency.
- Aditi Tatkare, who won from the Shrivardhan assembly constituency in Raigad district, is part of the Fadnavis cabinet. She was the women and child welfare minister in the Shinde government. She played a key role in implementing the election-winning Ladki Bahin scheme.
The cabinet was sworn in ten days after Devendra Fadnavis took oath as chief minister at Mumbai’s Azad Maidan. Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the ceremony, which also saw Ajit Pawar from the NCP and former CM Eknath Shinde from Shiv Sena taking oath as deputy chief ministers.
The prolonged deliberations over portfolio allocations and last-minute Cabinet swearing-in could be attributed to Mahayuti’s challenges in balancing power with Shiv Sena and NCP factions, both eager to secure influential roles in the government.
In the state polls, the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance secured a decisive victory, winning 235 seats. The BJP emerged as the single-largest party with 132 seats, while Shiv Sena won 57 and NCP secured 41 seats. The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance faced a major setback, with Congress winning just 16 seats, Shiv Sena (UBT) securing 20, and the NCP (Sharad Pawar faction) claiming only 10 seats.